


Thank You For Flying

by JustAPassingGlance



Series: In Flight Entertainment Trilogy [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2018-02-28 21:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2748491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAPassingGlance/pseuds/JustAPassingGlance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course, sometimes it is best not to leave things up to chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thank You For Flying

No one had ever accused Sebastian Smythe of being a romantic. At the age of eleven he had his first and only crush. The entire situation, he had decided was awkward and more than a little mortifying and he pointedly refused to ever put himself through  _that_  again. Since then he had a grand total of three boyfriends. (Three and a half, if you counted James. They had gone on things that looked and felt a little like dates and had been, more or less, exclusive without ever really talking about what it all meant. And the night before James graduated they stayed up having marathon sex and the last Sebastian had heard from him was a hurried ‘see you’ as he sprinted out the room in his graduation gown.)

He never made it to the six month mark with any of them.

He loved a nice dinner at a obscenely overpriced five star restaurant as much as the next person but he didn’t see why it had to mean more than any other Saturday night dinner. And the hand holding and moon-eyed stares only made him unable to enjoy his exquisitely cooked and elaborately prepared meal.   
  
Long ago he decided his life as a bachelor would continue forever. Success, after all, was far more important than love. As long as he had sex at least three times a month (preferably more but he had to be realistic about these things. Not even a mind-blowing orgasm was worth going out after a 70+ hour work week to pick up a random stranger at some club), he was content.   
  
Or he had been. Until he re-met one Blaine Anderson.  
  
He certainly hadn’t forgotten the other man after their first encounter, even before his music career took off and plastered his face on every third billboard in the city. But he had just been a vague memory floating somewhere in the back of his mind, fondly trotted out on the rare, lazy Sunday morning with a soft smile and a quiet chuckle.   
  
And, as Blaine’s star rose, Quinn helpful pointed out that it was creepy at their age to be fantasizing about random celebrities. Not that Blaine was really random. Nor did Sebastian’s interest in him have anything to do with his fame. But there were some things in his life that not even Quinn was privy too and their, albeit brief, history had been one of them.  
  
(That had changed after the party and he and Blaine began occasionally talking and Quinn’s teasing had become unbearable. Why he had mistakenly thought telling her would mean she’d just drop it, he wasn’t sure.  Instead, it lead to her declaration that they were like fairytale princes and she began begging to be his fairy godmother. Most days he thought it was at least a small step up from being labelled a celebrity stalker, especially after he confiscated the wand.)  
  
He had managed to do a fairly good job of keeping her at bay. First with the excuse of Kurt who, apparently, was a valued enough client of hers that she was willing to leave well enough alone and then with a rather convenient caseload that left him so buried in work he wore the same tie three days in a row before he noticed. Blaine was also extraordinarily busy- always on tour or off promoting something. Neither of them had time for her meddling and he threatened to arrange for the world to find out about that-thing-that-didn’t-happen with that-client-she-never-had if she didn’t stop.  
  
But then a very single Blaine had announced what the media had since labelled his ‘retirement tour’. Sebastian had spent a solid half hour teasing him about it, since he always liked to point out how much older Sebastian was than him before Blaine confided that actually he was taking a leave from the music scene to try his hand at the stage, which had always been a dream of his. And, he added a bit wistfully, he’d finally be able to live in his multi-million dollar apartment for longer than two weeks at a time. Which was something that Sebastian could sympathize with, his own apartment costing a considerable amount and most days he could barely remember what color the bathroom tiles were, he spent so little time in it.

The moment she had heard, Quinn started scheming. Cheerfully, she reminded Sebastian there were a fair few things he would rather dear old Dad not find out, never mind his grandfather. Even if most of those stories involved both of them it was no secret that the entire Smythe family, if not the world, liked her best. Begrudgingly he left her to it, claiming he had other things to be worrying about and resolutely deciding to ignore all of her incoming phone calls and e-mails.   
  
"July 18th," she said as she flounced, unannounced, into his office after two very successful wakes of evading her.   
  
"Is over eight months from now." Tiredly he flipped to the next page of the brief he was reviewing. "What about it?"  
  
She threw a manila envelope down onto his desk. “We are going to London.”  
  
"No we aren’t."  
  
"Your calendar is already blocked out. We’ll be gone for five days. Plane tickets and hotel reservations are in there. I think it’s for the best that I hold on to the concert tickets, however. For now, at least." She pointed at the envelope he had already brushed aside.

"They’ll be able to spare you for a week," she pressed on as he opened his mouth to protest. "Your father seems very keen on you settling down and finding a husband so he’s agreed that you are to be banned from the premise then as well."  
  
"Blaine and I talk less than once a week and have gone out for coffee a grand total of four times in the last two years. It’s a little premature to start picking out your grooms-maid’s dress."  
  
"And yet you didn’t even have to stop and think who it was I was talking about. Funny that.” She grinned sweetly before adding, “And my dress has been picked out since the day I became your woman of honor."  
  
"And when was that?"  
  
"November 2nd, 2014."  
  
He smiled fondly at the memory. “Fine.” He was basically getting a free vacation out of all of this and that would never be something he said no to. And frankly, he could do with some time off; he was regularly dreaming about the office now.   
  
"And you will go along with whatever plan I come up with that will sweep Blaine off his tiny hobbit feet?"  
  
“Hobbits don’t have small feet and neither does Blaine,” he said with a wink. “And I will go along with your silly, harebrained scheme.” He smirked. “Unless I come up with a better one.”  
  
"As if you could."  
  
If one thing could be said of Sebastian Smythe, it was that he never shrank from a challenge and that was a challenge if he ever heard one.

* * *

The concert had sold out within a day of the tickets going on sale. Officially, it was the last show of the tour, although Blaine would be performing one last time once he returned to New York. That, however, was being considered a private function with only about 400 tickets available to his friends and most dedicated fans.

People had come not only from all over Europe, but all over the world. Warblers and Warblerettes (as his fans called themselves; the name taken from the bird that had adorned the cover of his first album) had started lining up outside the O2 nearly 24 hours before the doors had opened because Blaine was known for popping out to visit.  
  
(True to form he had appeared just after midnight, armed with pizzas and pillows to distribute to the rather hysterical mass. He had taken pictures and signed anything shoved at him for 30 minutes before he had been hustled away into a waiting car to be taken back to his hotel, leaving a sea of crying fans in his wake.)  
  
The concert itself could only be described as emotionally charged, more so than any of the others on the tour had been. Halfway through the first song a collective realization ripped through both the band and the crowd that this, really, was it. After that everyone had trouble holding it together.  
  
For two of the songs they had a picture slideshow being projected. No one missed the crack in Blaine’s voice at the overwhelming ‘awww’ that arose when a photo from their first ever concert came up; all of them so young and unsure looking. Sam was so nervous it looked like he had never held a guitar in his life and their arms were stiffly looped around each other, obviously at the suggestion of whoever had taken the picture and not of their own initiative. It was a hilariously sharp contrast to how they were now; constantly invading each other’s space.  
  
They ended with a compilation of the top 10 greatest hits and by the end of it there was not a dry eye in the house and Blaine was openly crying onto Sam’s shoulder as they walked, arm in arm, off stage.   
  
“Hey,” Blaine said, reappearing a few minutes later to screams for more. His hair was more mussed that usual and his eyes were red-rimmed, but he was back to wearing his trademark smile. “From the bottom of our hearts we want to thank every single one of you. Not just for coming out tonight, but for the years of support you have given us.   
  
“So today, we have something a little special planned for you,” he continued as the band filed back on stage and a piano was rolled out for him. “There’s this guy back at home. We’ve known each other for years and since the day we met there’s been this… something between us.” He sat down at the piano and played out a few notes. “But the timing has never been right for us. Except now, I think, it finally might be. And let me tell you, he really is something.”   
  
The arena erupted in shrill screams and Blaine patiently waited for it to quiet before he continued. “I know you’re all anxious to rush home and upload the entire show onto the internet, and he’s probably too busy to go looking, but just in case, it would mean a lot if you could wait a few days to put this out there. So he can hear it from me first.

“So, in thanks for putting me at the top of your charts more than anyone else, and because Nick insisted we do a practice run of this at least once before Monday,” the crowd laughed fondly, “here’s a little song I wrote for him, and for all of you, about new beginnings and taking chances.”

* * *

"Up!" The hammering on his door echoed through the room and he groaned. Distinctly, he recalled setting three alarms just so this precise thing could be avoided. He would spend the rest of his life being endlessly grateful to Santana but it was rare that a morning that started with her waking him up would end well.

"Unnn," he groaned, rolling over to check the clock. 8.27, almost an hour before he had to be awake. "Can it wait until later?" He called back.  
  
"I’m not kidding, twinkletoes. Up. Now."  
  
He buried his head under the pillows. With all three of them and the bedding it very nearly blocked her out.   
  
"Don’t think I won’t go all kinds of Mexican crazy on your ass." The covers were torn back and thrown off to one side and Santana’s scowling face stared menacingly down at him.  
  
"We still have almost two hours. Go harass someone else."  
  
"Plans change, hot shot. You are now flying out of a different airport which means you needed to be up 10 minutes ago."  
  
"What? Why?"  
  
"You do not pay me for you to think for yourself. If I say you’re taking a bus to Moscow the walking to Beijing and flying from there you meekly nod your head and get your cute little ass on that bus. Comprende?"  
  
Meekly, Blaine nodded.  
  
"Good. I’m glad we’ve reached that understanding. Now get moving. I expect to see your bright shining face down in the hotel lobby at 9." Forcibly she smacked his ass which caused him to start upright to protect himself from further abuse. Delivering a final, unflinching glare she turned and left the room.  
  
He stumbled through his morning routine still not even close to awake. The cup of coffee he hastily gulped helped and by the second one he was beginning to feel more or less human. If he had known about this change of plans, he definitely would have said no to the last two rounds of drink he had been coerced into having.   
  
At 9.15 he headed down to the lobby. Their departures were always something of a production as everyone rushed to check out and load up either the bus or whatever assortment of buses, cars, or vans they were taking to wherever their next destination was. Although Santana managed to keep them relatively well organized. He remembered one band they had opened for in their earlier days who had actually left their drummer behind and didn’t realize it until they had gotten to the next town over.   
  
But this morning there was only Santana, terrifying heels tapping out an annoyed pattern on the floor and arms crossed in front of the plunging neckline of her dress.  
  
"Where’s everyone else?" That number of people weren’t easy to miss or hide, even in his barely functioning state.  
  
"Still asleep in their beds," she snapped. "Where do you think? They left. On time."  
  
"I needed another cup of coffee."  
  
"And now you get to share a car with me. And if we’re late, I might just arrange it so you get to spend the entire flight next to me." She flicked an imaginary speck of dust off her skirt, causing the numerous bracelets encircling her left arm to jangle cheerful. “It’s so weird how they do that. Every single time I move. Annoying, don’t you think?” Abruptly she turned on her heel, making sure the ends of her hair whipped around just in front of his face.  
  
Caffeine addiction might be a bitch but it had nothing on Santana Lopez.  
  
He waited until she was just out of earshot to grumble out an irritable, “Remind me to fire you when you get back from your vacation.”

If he was honest with himself and allowed himself to think about it he had no idea how he was going to make it through the next 2 months without her while she toured various exotic beaches with her girlfriend in pursuit of the world’s greatest piña colada. She had spent the last five years organizing nearly every single detail of his life, even the ones her job description didn’t strictly dictate she had any hand in. He barely knew what day of the week it was without her telling him anymore.

Not that he would ever tell her he was having such sentimental thoughts.   
  
The car ride wasn’t even that bad once Santana finally decided she had gotten her point across and thus staring daggers at him every two seconds. Eventually her phone rang and the combination of the murmur of  the engine and her rapid chattering lulled him into a doze.  
  
When he next opened his eyes they were coming to a stop in front of what looked a lot more like a solitary old hangar than an actual airport.  
  
"What the hell?" He mouthed to her because not even his present alarm warranted interrupting her in the middle of a phone call.  
  
Instead of replying she merely gestured for him to get out and held up a finger to indicate she would be another minute.  
  
He grabbed his carry-on bag and stepped outside, cautiously exploring his surroundings. He was pretty confident that Santana hadn’t finally gotten so fed up with him that he was about to be handed over to the Mexican mob. Probably. Although this would be the ideal time to do it, no one would really question his disappearing for at least a month which was when West Side Story rehearsals were scheduled to start.  
  
He turned around just in time to see the car, Santana still inside, take off. Quickly, he ran through the very short list of Spanish he knew in an attempt to determine if any of could possibly help save his life.  
  
Unless they could be swayed by butter, tacos, or cussing he was probably going to be out of luck.  
  
Eventually the sound of an incoming plane reached his ears and he temporarily debated whether it would be best to hide. The space was mostly open and if he really was about to be on the receiving end of the mob’s wrath,  movies told him it really would be best to comply with them.  
  
Of course, the fact that this was just a harmless prank seemed just as likely, if a bit less cynical. It was elaborate, certainly. But the tour was over. Touring, for the foreseeable future was over. And weirder things had happened.   
  
A couple of (very non-threatening looking) men came off the plane and proceeded to go about refueling and bringing some random boxes on board.  
  
Awkwardly he stayed off to the side as they chattered away to each other in a language he didn’t understand.  
  
"Mr. Anderson?" One of the men who had mostly been overseeing the other two as they worked finally came over to him. "Your plane awaits."  
  
"I’m sorry? My plane? I think there must have been some mistake."  
  
"No mistake, sir. Assuming you are Mr. Blaine Anderson."  
  
"I am. But I didn’t… Where is everyone else? Nick? Jeff? Sam?" Even when he didn’t travel with the whole motley crew his band was always with him.  
  
"I wouldn’t know. But I’m sure they are managing fine."  
  
"Blaine Anderson would you get on board already? Some of us have jobs to get back to." A brunette woman in a flight attendant uniform had stuck her head out of the plane and was yelling down at him. Although it had been years he was pretty sure he recognized her.  
  
"Janice?" He asked, thoroughly confused.  
  
"Good to know you haven’t forgotten all of us little people." She laughed. "Now come on. You’re keeping us waiting."  
  
No less perplexed than he had been before but at least feeling markedly more sure about his well being he started up the steps. At the top he stopped to give Janice a one armed hug which she happily returned.  
  
"I still don’t understand what’s happening. Or why you’re here."  
  
She grinned that same sly grin she used to use as she slipped him an extra blanket and beckoned him inside.  
  
Of all the private jets he had been on in the last decade this one was definitely the nicest. The wood paneling was simple but screamed expensive and instead of a couple rows of seats there were only leather seats with just enough room for a small table to be pulled out between the two. Along the back wall was a small liquor cabinet with probably thousands of dollars of alcohol in it.  
  
Catching sight of exactly who was occupying one of the chairs, he stopped in his tracks, causing Janice to bump into him.  
  
"I’ll just be up front," she giggled. "Let me know if you need anything."  
  
Blaine stayed frozen in the middle of the aisle.  
  
"You should probably have a seat. I think Peter is eager to take off."  
  
As if to accentuate his point the speakers crackled to life with a variation on the standard preflight announcements. Numbly Blaine stumbled his way to his seat and secured his seat belt in place.  
  
"What are you doing here?" He finally asked because all Sebastian was offering him was an amused grin.  
  
"Same thing you are, I imagine. Flying back to New York. As Janice mentioned, not all of us are retired. Work beckons."  
  
"And what is she doing here?"  
  
"I thought you might appreciate another familiar face." He shrugged but the cocksure smile was starting to give way to a twisted grimace of concern.  
  
"You came to England. To fly me home?"  
  
"And to use up some of my vacation days. The tower likes to change its exhibits every few years, didn’t want to be missing out on anything crucial. And London is known for their entertainment. I couldn’t possibly miss out on that. I’d never been to the O2 before. It’s much larger than I thought it would be," he said nonchalantly.   
  
"You came to my show?" Blaine groaned, covering his face with his hands. "Well that ruins my surprise then. Although I’m not sure I could ever top this." He laughed and looked around the plane in awe.  
  
"Bit presumptuous of you to just assume I’d be going tomorrow night. And announcing it to the world? Very forward."  
  
"I-I, I mean I hoped you would. Santana said she saw Quinn’s name of the guest list and that she was bringing a guest. But if you weren’t planning on it I promise I won’t be offended. You were there yesterday and you did this and… just because we’re well. I mean you seem to… and I do too. But that doesn’t mean you have to-"  
  
"Breathing is a crucial component of survival," Sebastian cut him off, grin larger than ever. “And I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” 


End file.
